


Pleasant Surprises

by LadySolitaire83



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Acts of Service is Sherlock's Love Language, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Fluff, Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration, Romance, Sherlock is a Good Boyfriend, Sherlolly - Freeform, Sherlolly Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySolitaire83/pseuds/LadySolitaire83
Summary: Molly encounters an entity that makes her appreciate her relationship with Sherlock.She uncapped her lipstick and turned to face the mirror. “Oh, my God!” she shrieked, dropping the lipstick to the stone floor. Her eyes wide, she ever so slowly turned round. “Bloody hell,” she muttered to herself as she stared at the doorway with her heart thundering in her chest.Happy Halloween!
Relationships: Molly Hooper & Original Female Character, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57
Collections: 2020 Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration





	Pleasant Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> **I'M BACK, Y'ALL!!!** Did y'all miss me?
> 
> I hope y'all like my little fic. Happy Halloween :D
> 
> I own nothing. Everything belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, BBC, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss. If I owned Sherlock and Molly Hooper, then there would be a lot more Sherlolly in the show.
> 
> All mistakes are mine. Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome; I only ask that you’d be mindful of your words.

Molly opened her locker with a heavy sigh. Shrugging off her lab coat, she hung it up and took her canary yellow peacoat off its peg. She glanced at the mirror on the inside of her locker door and winced. _I look like hell_ , she thought. _Well, a double shift can do that to anyone._ Shrugging into her coat, she asked herself if she had the energy to cook. _Who am I kidding?_ she mused as she slung her white-and-green striped bag over her shoulder. _Of course I’ll just order takeaway. Maybe from the new Filipino restaurant in Fitzrovia_ , she thought, taking her lipstick from her bag.

She uncapped her lipstick and turned to face the mirror. “Oh, my God!” she shrieked, dropping the lipstick to the stone floor. Her eyes wide, she ever so slowly turned round. “Bloody hell,” she muttered to herself as she stared at the doorway with her heart thundering in her chest.

An elderly plump woman gave Molly a warm smile as she stood just inside the locker room. Her silver hair was pulled into a loose bun. She wore a faded green wool jumper under a cream knitted cardigan and a pair of light grey trousers. The front of her medium brown leather loafers were lightly scuffed. And Molly could make out the shapes of the crisps and chocolate bars in the vending machine through her translucent form.

“Mrs Salvatore?!” Molly gasped.

The spectre’s face brightened and she advanced towards her, making her take a step backwards.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” she muttered over and over. Terror gripped her entire being when she reopened her eyes and Mrs Salvatore’s spirit had not vanished. The concern on her face reminded Molly of her mother––which, unfortunately, did nothing to comfort her. “Y-you can’t…” She took a deep breath. “You c-can’t possibly be real!”

Mrs Salvatore only chuckled and reached for her arm. She pulled her hand back when she noticed that Molly recoiled in fear. “Oh, sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you all right?”

“Y-you’re _dead_!” She was absolutely sure that Mrs Salvatore’s remains were inside one of the stainless steel drawers in her morgue. _Drawer number eight, to be precise._ “I just… I just finished your postmortem!” _Acute arsenic poisoning. Lestrade suspects one of her children did it for their inheritance._

“Yes, dear, I know. I tried responding to your questions when you were cutting me up and weighing my vital organs, but it quickly became clear you couldn’t hear me.” She chuckled, reminding her of Mrs Hudson.

“Because you’re dead!” She took a few deep breaths before picking up her lipstick from the floor and slamming her locker door closed. With trembling hands, she replaced the cap on her lipstick and dropped it in her bag. “You’re just extremely exhausted, Molly,” she muttered to herself with a vigorous shake of her head. “Ghosts aren’t real!”

She took another deep breath and shook her head, as if to get rid of the absurd idea that the spirit of her last ‘patient’ (as she liked to call them) was standing in front of her. As she moved to leave the locker room, she inadvertently glanced back up at Mrs Salvatore and sighed upon seeing the worried expression on her face. She could not explain it but, in an instant, her terror was replaced by the intense need to know who hurt Mrs Salvatore. “Do you know who poisoned you? I can tell DI Lestrade and he’ll arrest them for your murder.”

Mrs Salvatore gave her a gentle smile. “That can wait. You look too tired, dear, and I’ve decided to take care of you.” She walked out of the locker room but quickly returned when Molly didn’t follow.

 _Shit. She’s really serious about taking care of me_ , she thought as she shook her head. “No, it’s all right, Mrs Salvatore. I’ll just get some takeaway on my way home, have a nice, relaxing bath whilst drinking wine and reading a book, and perhaps watch some telly with my cat. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep. I’m off tomorrow anyway. So I don’t need anyone to take care of me. But thanks anyway!”

“Well, don’t you have a boyfriend, dear? Or a girlfriend? Or a datemate, like what my granddaughter calls the person she’s dating? You should have someone cook for you and pour wine for you or run you a bath when you’re too tired from work!”

Smiling, Molly sat down on one of the benches and offered the space next to her to Mrs Salvatore. “I do have a boyfriend. But he’s on a case right now. He’s a genius private detective, you see. Well, he calls himself a consulting detective.” She chuckled and scratched the back of her left hand “He gets sort of hyper-focused on his cases so nothing else matters until he’s solved the case. I get him back––well, not just me. He cares about other people too.” She took a deep breath. “But, yeah, I get him back once he’s done with the case.” She grinned, blushing a bit.

Mrs Salvatore pursed her lips and slightly shook her head in disapproval. “Oh, dear. Does he eat at all?”

“Not usually during a case. Just tea or coffee. Sometimes, he takes a bite or two when his landlady bakes his favourite sweets.”

“Oh, the boy has a sweet tooth!” She giggled and tried to nudge Molly with her elbow.

She was surprised to feel only the slightest chill when Mrs Salvatore’s elbow touched hers. “You have no idea!” She giggled with her.

Mrs Salvatore rose from the bench and smiled down at her. “Let’s get you home, dear.”

Molly rose with a grin. “Oh, all right. Just please don’t make me laugh on the way home. People will think I’m barmy!”

“I’m afraid I can’t promise you that. My late husband always said I’m the most hilarious person he’d ever met!” She winked at Molly as they left the locker room together. “You can always pretend to stare at your phone, like all young people these days.”

* * *

“Oooohhhh… What’s that smell?” Mrs Salvatore asked as Molly unlocked her front door.

Molly sniffed the air and smiled. “Oh, that’s Filipino food.” She knitted her eyebrows together. “Well, that’s weird…” She stepped into her house and was met with Toby’s miaows. Scratching her cat’s head, she glanced at the neat piles of mail on the front hallway table and, smiling, she walked towards the lounge-slash-kitchen. “Sherlock?”

He straightened up from hunching over her worktop and turned to her with a relieved smile. “There you are! You should’ve been home 19 minutes ago. And you didn’t answer my texts!”

She dropped her bag onto the brown leather sofa and made a beeline for her boyfriend. “Yeah, sorry about that. My phone died,” she said before giving him a peck on the lips. “I was gonna get some takeaway from that Filipino restaurant on Charlotte Street, but they’d closed.”

“Worry not, _mon amour_.” Grinning, he stepped aside to reveal a beautifully arranged serving of [Bicol Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicol_Express), her favourite Filipino dish, in a bowl and a wine goblet filled with red wine next to it. “I knew you’d be starving when you got home and you’d likely end up falling asleep before you got to order in or you’d be too exhausted to stop in for takeaway, so I took the liberty of picking up the food for you.”

She took off her coat and draped it over the back of the sofa, where Mrs Salvatore sat. “Have you solved your case then?” she asked as she took a bite of the spicy dish.

“Nope.” He took a piece of fairy cake from the fridge and nibbled on it. “But something about the circumstances of the attack is eluding me, so I decided to distract myself by predicting what you’d do after your double shift. So I folded and put away your laundry, fed Toby, sorted your mail, and picked up Filipino food. Your mum rang to ask which present she should buy for her husband and I helped her with that too.”

She sipped some wine. _Acts of service really is his love language._ “What, you couldn’t run me a bath?” she teased.

“I’m going to, when you’re just about done with dinner. I’ve perfectly timed it though, of course, I have to amend the schedule due to your tardiness. I can join you in the bath as well if you’re in the mood.” He winked at her, making her––as well as Mrs Salvatore––laugh.

She nibbled on her lower lip and gave him a sultry look. “Maybe later if you’re a good boy.”

“I _am_ being a good boy,” he replied as he took her wine goblet and set it on the worktop. He wrapped his arms round her waist, holding her bone-weary body close and briefly touching her forehead with his. “You know, I didn’t do all these just to distract myself from my case. I really do care about you. And I can’t stand the thought of you coming home starving and exhausted from double shifts and having to do all these things yourself. You deserve to be pampered and taken care of.”

She could not resist the strong urge to pull his head down and kiss him. “I love you too, Sherlock,” she whispered. “I really appreciate you making a lot of effort. Thank you for taking care of me. Is this going to be a one-off or…”

A sharp gasp from him made her look up at him. _I know that look._ “You figured out who attempted to kill your client?”

His eyes turned slightly apologetic. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course not,” she replied with a gentle shake of her head. “Go and get Hopkins to arrest the bastard.”

Smiling, he kissed her this time and took a step towards the sofa. He picked up his Belstaff coat––on which Mrs Salvatore was perched––and turned to leave. He, however, only took a couple of steps before he turned towards the sofa. “What was that?”

Molly straightened up, afraid that he had seen Mrs Salvatore. “What was what?”

He stared at the spot on the sofa where his coat lay a few seconds ago. “It’s strange, but…” He glanced at the roaring fire in the fireplace. “My coat isn’t supposed to be this cold,” he said slowly, as if trying to piece things together. “That _spot_ isn’t supposed to be cold at all.”

“Sherlock? You should probably finish this case first before you start another one?”

He stared at her with knitted eyebrows. “Right,” he softly said before pulling on his coat. “I’ll be home soon.”

Once the front door had closed behind him, Molly turned to a playfully grinning Mrs Salvatore. “Sorry about that! I’m afraid that he’d just scoff at and mock us if I told him that a ghost was literally sitting on his coat. He can be a bit cutting with his opinions and deductions. It can be traumatising.”

“I completely understand,” she replied with a nod. “Things they can’t see or touch or prove are just unfathomable for some people. Even geniuses like your Sherlock can’t wrap their gigantic brains round the idea that spirits might hang about this plane after they die.” She rose from the sofa with a soft sigh. “I’ll leave you to your dinner and bath then, Molly.”

She frowned. “Where are you going? I thought you were going to tell me about the biggest mistake that your daughter ever made?”

Mrs Salvatore smirked. “Oh, don’t worry, dear. I think I’m going to haunt my son-in-law. I’ve never liked him, especially after I caught him cheating on my daughter. He’s the one that poisoned me, by the way.” She rolled her eyes. “Bloody cowardly and unoriginal.”

Molly gasped in excitement. “May I come and watch? I want to see him crying for his mum when he figures out that you’re haunting him!”

“I doubt that. He’s very self-centred. And he treats his own mum terribly.” The two giggled.

“How about I text DI Lestrade his address? Hopefully, you’ll frighten him enough that he’ll confess to your murder. Lestrade will be there to hear his confession and he’ll be arrested!”

“I’d appreciate that, Molly.” She then gave her the address.

She took her mobile from her coat pocket. “You’ll be back, won’t you?” she asked once she had texted the address to Lestrade.

Mrs Salvatore took Molly’s hands in hers. “I might come back. I might not. At least I can rest easy now that I know your Sherlock is taking care of you.” She embraced her. “If you don’t marry him soon, Dr Hooper, I’ll haunt you.” With a delighted laugh, she vanished into thin air.

 _Have a good afterlife, Mrs Salvatore_ , Molly thought as she carried her bowl and wine goblet to the coffee table. She took another bite and texted Sherlock.

> _Don’t think I didn’t notice that you called my house ‘home,’ Sherlock._ :) – Mx
> 
> _I wasn’t referring to your house. I meant you._ – SH
> 
> _You are my home, Molly Hooper._ – SH
> 
> _Well, then, come home to me alive and in one piece, OK? I love you._ – Mx
> 
> _I love you too, Molly._ – SH

**Author's Note:**

> The original idea for this fic was much, _much_ smuttier. Hehehehehe...
> 
> Also, there is a Filipino restaurant on Charlotte Street called [Josephine's](https://www.opentable.co.uk/r/josephines-filipino-restaurant-london), but it's been there for a while. I don't think I've seen a fic where they eat Filipino food, so I tried it out for this fic.
> 
> So what do you think? Hate it? Like it? Love it?


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